


This Quiet Darkness

by kristophine



Category: Longmire (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, OT3, the Prudhoe Bay years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-11
Updated: 2016-10-11
Packaged: 2018-08-21 20:46:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8260037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kristophine/pseuds/kristophine
Summary: "Me and Henry spent most of our twenties working rigs up in Prudhoe Bay. All those years, I never saw anybody get made up from roughneck to AD without being derrickman for at least a couple of years."The one upside—*one* upside—of winter in Prudhoe Bay was that the mosquitoes finally died.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is pretty much entirely saathi1013's fault, and all the good parts are because she betaed. There's that episode with the oil rig where Walt casually tosses off that first line, and I was left going, wait, what? Really? Most of your twenties? In Prudhoe Bay, the icy end of the godforsaken Alaskan tundra? REALLY? and then this happened.

"Me and Henry spent most of our twenties working rigs up in Prudhoe Bay. All those years, I never saw anybody get made up from roughneck to AD without being derrickman for at least a couple of years."

 

The one upside— _one_ upside—of winter in Prudhoe Bay was that the mosquitoes finally died.

Henry had nothing against mosquitoes in the abstract. They were, after all, a part of the delicate, wide-ranging web of life. But the variety in the area had both the size and stamina of draft horses, and there was no denying that their bites itched like hell.

Walt got particularly cranky when they got bad. He would not _say_ much about them, but he would develop a pinched, unhappy frown that only cleared as the nights got longer.

“If you continue to make that face, I believe it will freeze that way,” said Henry.

Walt rolled his eyes at Henry. “Very funny,” he grumbled.

“Indeed it was.” Henry folded his arms behind his bed, leaning back on the bunk. “I hope you caught the humor in the reference to the cold.”

Walt snorted. Which meant he had, and had no intention of giving Henry the satisfaction of laughing at it.

“Why are you in this mood?”

Walt sighed. He sat up in bed, leaning forward, and rubbed the back of his neck, grimacing. “Book’s gone.”

Henry’s eyebrows climbed. “Not the Iliad?” It was a beat-up copy with a faded cover, without illustrations of any kind, bought at one of the school library’s annual charity sales. Walt loved it. Walt had been known, on rare and unfortunate occasions, to begin reciting the Catalogue of Ships to Henry while Henry was trying to sleep.

“Yeah.”

“Do you think someone took it?”

Walt’s mouth was turned down grimly at the corners. “Yeah.”

Henry sighed heavily. “All right, I will play. _Who?_ ”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Walt. Who took your book?”

Walt would not meet his eyes. “Could have been a lot of guys.”

Which meant it was someone Walt did not want to get into trouble, which meant it was someone Walt felt responsible for. Most likely Bill, the long-timer with the fiberglass leg. Of course. He had not taken kindly to Walt’s interruption of a particularly drunken poker game the week before. Walt had never gotten past the accordion-folded pictures of children in Bill’s wallet.

“I see,” said Henry. When they turned out the lights and sacked out, he folded his hands over his stomach and thought for a while.

 

Walt had a lot of problems with the North Slope in winter. At least three of them were Henry’s beard.

“It ain’t a _beard,_ Henry,” he said on their trudge from the dorms to the kitchens.

“Oh, be quiet.” Henry’s cheeks were red, although with the wind or the shame of Walt calling out his sad little beard, Walt could not have said.

“I know it’s better than nothing, but we got to get it a word that fits.”

“I will murder you in your sleep. I know where you bunk.”

“Now, what _I’ve_ got is a _beard._ ” Walt preened, running his fingers through his mustache, just to irritate Henry.

“Yes, well, when we are old men, you will look back on this moment sadly as you contemplate your thinning hair and my still-luxurious mane.” Henry flipped the end of his ponytail at Walt. Walt, to his discredit, stuck out his tongue in response.

“You’ll go bald before me,” he said. Henry laughed out loud.

“Nice try, asshole,” said Henry. Which was enough to get Walt to laugh, too.

 

That night, Walt found his copy of the Iliad next to his bed. It wasn’t real dramatic. If he hadn’t searched the room top to bottom already, he would have guessed he’d just forgotten about it.

“Henry,” said Walt, slowly, “do you happen to know how this book got back here?”

Henry glanced up from his thoughtful perusal of a tattered but still legible copy of Playboy. “Why, what a coincidence.”

Walt searched Henry’s face in the low light from the beat-up lamp on the desk between their beds for a long moment. There was a little wince when he shifted; a tender redness along his knuckles that Walt had been figuring was just the weather chapping them; but most of all, there was the telltale flicker of his eyes away from Walt’s.

“...right,” Walt said at length.

He fell asleep that night between one page and the next.

 

“How is Martha?” asked Henry when Walt came back from the phone. From the look Henry was shooting him, Walt must be grinning like an idiot again.

“Oh, she’s good,” Walt said. “Cady’s sleeping through the night.” And how proud he was of that; his little girl, his baby, already getting so big and independent that she could sleep without waking her mama.

Henry’s eyes softened. Whatever Henry might want the guys to think, he had a soft spot for Cady—for any babies, really, but especially Cady—about a mile wide.

“She says to tell you hello,” added Walt. That got a little different smile from Henry. Rueful, almost.

“Well, please be sure to tell her that I say hello when you speak to her next.”

“Always do,” said Walt, smiling at Henry crookedly.

Henry smiled back, shaking his head just a little.

 

“Henry,” Walt whined.

“No.”

“Come on.”

“For the _last time,_ no.”

“We could take them!”

“You are an astonishingly terrible poker player, and Gilly is far superior to both of us combined. We cannot win. Therefore, I will not play.”

“You are _no fun._ ”

“You are much less fun when you have been losing money, especially while drinking that swill.”

Walt pouted, as if he were not a grown man. “Don’t know why you’re so down on my beer.”

“For one thing, are you not supposed to be _security?_ For another, it is disgusting.”

“Just—just an hour.”

“No. Gilly will fleece you blind. You will sulk about it for days.”

Walt’s face was a study in pained, affronted confusion. “ _Sulk?_ ”

“Yes. Sulk.”

 

“Walt. _Walt._ ”

“ _What?”_

“You must take out the fish scraps from dinner.”

Walt sighed, setting the whiskey bottle down. “In the morning.”

“No. _Now._ ”

“It’s—it’s ten below out there!”

“So help me, Walt Longmire, if you leave that fish in here when I am trying to sleep, I will murder you.”

Bill pounded on their wall. “Just take it out, Longmire!” he yelled.

Walt bundled up, glaring balefully at Henry the whole way. When he got out the back door of the dorm, the snow was just a trickle in the sky, threads of white catching stray lights from the outbuildings.

He glanced back up at the building as he pried open the trash lid. There were stray windows lit, yellow and hazy in the crystallizing air, shadows of the men inside moving around.

The whiskey made the whole thing feel slow, liquid. He took a second to enjoy it--not much more than that, in the deadly cold. He hadn’t bothered tucking his jeans into his boots and the chill seeping in around his ankles was going from uncomfortable to worrisome fast.

Henry was fast asleep when he got back into their room. Walt made it to his cot without turning the light on, fumbling in the darkness.

 

Walt was getting jumpy. It was the darkness. Or it might have been that they were just back from their break in Anchorage, and Walt, as usual, had not availed himself of the class of feminine company that Henry kept on occasion. (They were not, technically, women for hire; but they were women who considered the contents of Henry’s wallet before they decided whether to spend time with him.)

“Walt,” said Henry, “you should call Martha.”

Walt glanced up at him, frowning—he had borrowed a copy of _The Great Gatsby_ off Jimmy from Trapper Creek, one of the actual Alaskans on the rig—and he had been staring disconsolately at the same page for some time.

“Costs money,” Walt said, but in the tone of voice of a man willing to be convinced.

“Yes, but listening to you heave heavy sighs is costing me patience. Here.” Henry dug into the pocket of his jeans for change. “I will help fund this communique.”

“I couldn’t—” Walt started to object, looking stricken.

“I will join you and talk with Martha myself. Is that acceptable?”

“Of course!” Walt said, automatically, and then looked concerned again. Any suggestion of charity was, naturally, entirely anathema to him, but it would run counter to his nature to suggest that Henry was anything other than welcome to talk with Martha.

“Excellent. Let us go find a free phone.” Henry stretched his feet out off the edge of the bed and pulled himself up.

They were in luck. At that hour, there were a limited number of men willing to be awake, and an even more limited number of spouses and girlfriends willing to be called.

Walt hesitated in taking Henry’s quarter, so Henry thumbed it into the coin slot himself, rolling his eyes at Walt. Walt rolled his eyes back and fed the rest of the change in, bright silver noises.

When Martha picked up, Henry was still sitting close enough to Walt to hear her voice, crackling through the receiver. “Hello?”

“Hi, darlin’,” said Walt. The warmth in his voice was—as always—a revelation.

“Oh, Walt! Honey! How are you?”

“Good, good. I’ve got Henry here, too. He wanted to say hi as long as I was calling.”

“That’s lovely! Put him on.”

Walt was smiling as he handed the receiver to Henry, and their fingers brushed as Henry took it. “Hello, Martha,” Henry said.

“How are you?” Martha’s familiar voice was full of affection.

“Quite well, thank you. And how are you?”  A dangerous warmth kindled in his own chest, to be tamped down

“Oh, I’m doing pretty good. Cady’s getting in the habit of putting things in her mouth—sweetie! She’s got ahold of the keys from my purse, I don’t even know how. I don’t know whether to stop her or let her learn that they’re not candy.”

Henry had started laughing at the exasperation in Martha’s voice. “So she takes after her father, then?”

“I was certainly never this much trouble, I’m sure.”

“I am sure you are correct.”

“Are you taking care of Walt for me?” She sounded calm and certain. He would not have suspected that there was some real vulnerability behind the question if he had not known her as well as he did.

Henry adjusted the receiver under his chin. “I try. In as much as I am permitted.”

That got him a beautiful lilting laugh, ringing out like bells. “I’m very glad he’s got you up there.”

“I do not think he should be permitted to do this without supervision.”

She laughed again. “Is he looking at you like a kicked puppy right now?”

Henry glanced up. “Yes. I do believe so.”

“Henry!” protested Walt.

“I am getting the impression that he would like to talk to you again.”

“Well, you’d best hand me back over before he gets jealous,” she said, still a laugh in her voice.

Walt glowered at Henry as he hunkered back down with the receiver, but his face softened immediately as Martha started talking—words too soft and fast for Henry to follow, now. “Yeah,” said Walt. “Mmm hmm. Well. I don’t know about _that._ ”

Henry sat back in his chair, propping his chin up on one hand. After a few minutes, Martha must have put Cady on, because Walt leaned forward, face lighting up. “Hey, sweetie!” Walt said, loudly and clearly. “Hey, baby!”

Walt listened intently to the stream of indecipherable noises that followed.

“Hey, Henry,” said Walt, motioning at him. “Say hi to Cady.”

Henry shot him a dubious look, but leaned forward obediently, their heads together over the phone. “Hello, Cady,” he said. “This is your Uncle Henry.”

There were more squeals and gurgles—they certainly could not be described as _words_ —but nevertheless, Walt looked satisfied, somehow even proud, as Henry could feel himself smiling into the phone.

 

Walt was not supposed to find Henry playing poker with Gilly, Charlie-Joe, and Bob.

“Henry! I—” Walt came to a crashing halt, staring blankly at Henry. Henry fought the impulse to grab for his shirt.

“Strip poker, Longmire,” said Gilly. “Gonna join us?”

Walt continued to simply stare at Henry.

Henry, after another moment of this, sighed. “Fine. I am sorry I came to play poker with Gilly without you. If you wish to lose, badly, you may join us.”

“Uh,” said Walt. “No. No, I just wanted—I was going to ask. Did you borrow my good socks?”

“Yes, yesterday. They should be drying on the foot of my bed.”

“Okay,” Walt said, still sounding peculiar. “I’ll just—” and with that, he backed out of Charlie-Joe’s room.

 

Walt, of course, was not a particularly verbose or demonstrative man. Understanding his moods required patience, forethought, and no small amount of near-psychic talent. It was one of the things Henry cherished about Walt.

Henry did _not_ cherish the way Walt was currently picking his teeth with one nail.

After about ten minutes of it, Henry sat up in his bunk and hurled the bear he was whittling badly out of a chunk of junk wood directly at the wall above Walt’s head. Walt made a noise that was at once startled and wounded as their neighbor banged on the wall and shouted something unpleasant.

“You _know_ that bothers me,” Henry said through gritted teeth.

Walt did not dignify that with a response, but he did at least stop picking his teeth. He shut off the light, and they contemplated sleep.

One of the wonderful things about working the kitchen was that, at the end of the day, Henry was too tired to think. He was coming up on the end of his thirteen weeks on before he would get two weeks off to spend back in Anchorage. He would have plenty of time to find young women of more beauty than means. He would have a paycheck to spend on entertaining them.

But Walt—Walt was evidently bored. In the darkness, Henry could hear the rustle of the blanket as Walt pulled it down, and the soft, unmistakable noise of a hand on a cock. Slow at first, then stripping with greater speed and urgency, until Walt choked out a vanishingly small gasp, and for a moment that hung in the air like a dragonfly, Henry could not breathe or swallow.

The spell broke when Walt shifted to clean up, reaching for a handkerchief that Henry could picture as clearly as if the lights were all on and the midnight sun with them. Henry, of course, said nothing.

 

“Martha,” said Walt, “I think I’m going crazy.”

“Oh, honey,” she said. “If you want to come home, you can. We can get the money somehow. You don’t need to be up there all winter.”

“No.” He stopped, cleared his throat. “This still—there’s no way I could make this kind of money back there.”

“Still,” she said. “What’s the worst of it all?”

And there wasn’t a good way to say that, was there. He tried. “Henry,” he said, and then had to stop again. “It’s—never mind. Forget it.”

“You’re not fighting, are you?” She sounded terribly worried.

“No. No.”

“All right.” There was a screech on her end of the line. “Oh, dear. Cady’s—I have to go, dear. But whatever it is, you and Henry can work it out. You’ve been friends ten years.”

“Yeah. I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she said and then hung up.

 

“Strip poker, huh,” said Walt. Henry sighed, putting down his Playboy.

“Gilly thought it would be humorous. It reduced the stakes.”

“Seems—unwise.”

“Why?” Henry twisted around to look at him, disbelieving. “Are you under the impression that _Gilly McGwire_ harbors sinister designs on my virtue?”

It was worth the annoyance to see the shade of red Walt immediately turned. His mouth curled down at the corners in a moue of discontent.

“Never _mind,_ ” Walt gritted out.

“No, no. Do tell me what is going on in your mind. In what way is it _unwise_ to play strip poker with Gilly? Are you afraid I will lose my shirt in a literal sense?”

Walt had gone beet-red to the roots of his hair. “Shut up,” he muttered.

“Walt,” said Henry, “you never cease to amaze me. I was not even certain you understood the _concept_ of—”

“I _read,_ ” Walt all but bellowed.

“The Greek classics. I should have seen it coming.”

“I just—you know—” Watching Walt struggle through the attempt at speech should have been classed as a spectator sport. “While Martha and I were, uh. And I would never... It's not as though I hadn't ever _considered…_ ”

It took a moment for that to become clear. Relatively clear. Possibly clear. Clear in the sense that Henry felt he might have an inkling of the history, or lack thereof, to which Walt was so obliquely referring.

“Are you saying—” Henry said, slowly.

“Good _night,_ ” said Walt, and he picked up his pillow and punched it with far more force than could ever have been necessary before turning the light off.

After a few minutes in the dark, Henry said, quietly, “You are not the only one.”

Walt did not answer. He was not asleep. Henry knew the way he breathed in sleep too well to believe the sham.

 

“You know Gilly was in the Marines,” said Walt apropos of nothing, the following day.

Henry squinted as him. “…Yes?”

“I heard him,” and Walt had the firm set to his mouth that meant he had carefully considered this, and had prepared an educational speech on the topic, “call one of the guys _pogey bait._ ”

Henry waited for the inevitable sequel to this apparent non sequitur.

Walt was watching him, clearly hoping Henry would understand the reference without requiring more explanation. Henry was not even somewhat sorry to disappoint.

Walt sighed heavily, annoyed. “Pogey bait means—it’s a young man who can, uh. Be exploited.”

“Walt.” Henry stared at him in frank disbelief. “You _are_ concerned that Gilly has designs on my virtue.”

Walt shrugged with one shoulder, refusing to meet Henry’s eyes.

“Well.” Henry thought over his next words very carefully. “I appreciate your concern.”

Walt still would not look at him, but the set of his shoulders seem to ease slightly.

“Although you are _also_ a young man,” Henry added, as an afterthought. “I would be well within my rights to be concerned that he might exploit you, as well. And that is another excellent reason why _you_ should not play poker with him.”

“I’m married!” Walt’s wide-eyed indignation was hilarious.

“If exploitation is the goal, I hardly think that will pose much of a moral quandary for a man like Gilly.”

Walt looked so taken aback by that salvo that Henry did not expect a response, and, in fact, never got one.

 

The thing about Gilly McGwire was that he was, actually, not an unattractive man.

Walt could recognize things like that.

Gilly McGwire was tall, and strong, with red hair and a curling red beard, in his thirties, a man who’d left the Marines a few years back for reasons never discussed or explained, with broad shoulders and the kind of handsome face that didn’t show up on the North Slope all that often.

And Gilly McGwire had a history. Walt was security. Walt knew all about _histories._ It was his job. There had been—not complaints, no, but fights. Centering around Gilly.

(If he’d put more effort into checking into this after walking into Charlie-Joe’s room and seeing Henry sitting there, loose and relaxed, chest and shoulders bare and gleaming in the low, smoky light, well. _Well_.)

He couldn’t stop watching Gilly to see if Gilly was going to try something with Henry. And he couldn’t stop watching Henry. He just—couldn’t.

 _I appreciate your concern_ was not quite the same thing as what he’d hoped—or expected—to hear.

Henry kept glancing up and catching him at it, and Henry looked more and more concerned with time. But Walt couldn’t stop.

 

“Martha,” said Walt, leaning his head against the cool glass of the little divider between the phones. “I’ve gone crazy.”

“I wondered when you would,” she said.

“I can’t stop,” he said in a rush. “I keep _looking,_ and it’s—it’s so awful. I miss you so much. But I can’t stop.”

“Who is it?” she asked. He was profoundly grateful to her for not needing an explanation.

He took a deep breath. “Henry.”

There was a pause. “Oh,” she said. “ _Oh._ ”

“It’s terrible.”

“It’s—you know, this could be worse.”

He knew that note in her voice. It was the same way she’d sounded right before she said, “I think we can do the roof, don’t you?” and he’d nearly broken his neck on his way up the ladder to fix it, or the time they were eighteen and she’d pulled out a map and pointed out that they could be at a dance club in “just a couple of hours, if we tried,” and he’d suffered through the most singularly awkward night of his life.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

“I’m thinking that Alaska is a long way from home.” She still sounded contemplative. Weighing. Measuring. “I’m thinking maybe Alaska doesn’t need the same rules as home.”

“Darling,” he said, over his pulse pounding.

“I’m not saying you have to do anything.” She paused. “But, if you did. If something happened. It would be okay.”

“Okay?” He couldn’t believe his ears.

“Yes. You’re a long way from home. From me. Maybe you just need someone to take care of you when I can’t.”

“Do you know what you’re saying?”

“I read the _Iliad_ too, Walt,” she said with a touch of asperity, and he couldn’t stop the tight, terrified laugh that bubbled out of him.

 

The next time Henry was helping Walt haul the garbage from their room out to the dumpsters in back of the forms, Henry kept catching Walt glancing at him, which had somehow become their new equilibrium. More than once, Henry had thought about telling Walt that he would stop playing poker with Gilly—Walt’s stares at Gilly were difficult to miss, and seemed to oscillate between _agonized_ and _scandalized_ —but he had not. Perhaps because he was, at heart, a petty man. He would take jealousy where he could get it.

It was so cold out that Henry could feel it prickling against his lips every time he took a breath as he heaved the bag up into the dumpster. As he turned back around, he started to say, “Your turn,” but he was cut off by Walt’s mouth on his, Walt’s gloved hands tightening on his biceps almost cruelly.

He stood stock-still for a minute. That was the incorrect response. Walt’s hands loosened abruptly, and Walt pulled back, looking stunned, with rapidly-growing alarm.

Henry grabbed Walt’s arms at the elbows and yelled, “ _You—are—married!”_

“Martha—I—we talked about it,” Walt got out. “She—you’re _different._ ”

Henry stared at him. “Walt. You are going to need to tell me _what the fuck you are talking about._ ”

Walt shivered. Henry grabbed Walt’s bag of trash and chucked it into the dumpster.

“ _Inside,_ ” Henry added pointedly. “We will both continue to have need of all of our fingers and toes.”

Walt was silent, subdued, as he followed Henry back into the dorms, the snow crunching under their feet.

“Walls’re thin,” Walt mumbled as Henry held the door to the stairwell open for him.

Henry threw his hands up in the air. “ _Fine._ Follow me.”

He led Walt to the old pantry, which had been repurposed as a general supply closet. It was tiny, but it had the definite advantage of affording some minor degree of privacy.

He shut the door behind them, and turned to Walt, who had shoved his gloves in his pockets and was unzipping his parka, fiddling with the zipper with nervous hands. “All right,” he said. “What do you mean, I’m different?”

Walt sighed, squeezing his eyes shut. “She said—look. Alaska’s a long way from home.”

Henry hid his flinch. “I see.”

“You—take care of me. Always have.”

That was certainly true.

“And I,” Walt said. His eyes kept flickering back down to Henry’s mouth, and his voice dropped, getting husky. “I want to take care of _you._ ”

Well. Even in a situation that was less than ideal, it would take a man of great moral fortitude to stand in Walt’s way.

Henry was not that man.

“All right,” he said.

Walt’s eyes came back up to meet his. “Yeah?” he asked, sounding startled all over again.

“Yes,” said Henry, and he grabbed the front of Walt’s shirt with both fists and reeled him in. Henry knew there were certain areas where he excelled; kissing, he had always believed, with some evidence, was one of them. And if he kissed Walt hard enough, they might both forget that this was sure to be a questionable idea at best.

 

Walt couldn’t say he’d never thought about what kissing Henry would be like. He _could_ say he hadn’t anticipated that it would be like this.

In his mind, the rare and uncomfortable times he’d let himself think about it in any detail, he had imagined that Henry ( _pogey bait,_ the traitorous whisper in his brain murmured) would be… at most, _compliant,_ submitting to kisses and caresses; he’d pictured Henry _letting_ Walt kiss him, letting Walt run his fingers through Henry’s hair. He hadn’t expected that Henry would press Walt into the wall, shoving a thigh between Walt’s legs for Walt to grind against.

Walt wasn’t complaining.

Henry gently worried Walt’s lower lip between his teeth. Walt found himself whimpering, clutching the back of Henry’s parka, slick fabric rustling under his hands. He tugged at it frantically. Henry kept Walt pinned, chest to chest, while rolling his arms behind him to yank the sleeves off and drop the coat on the floor.

“Oh, hell,” Walt whispered, sliding his chilled hands under Henry’s shirt, digging his fingers into the solid muscle of Henry’s back. “ _Oh._ ”

Henry jerked like he’d gotten an electrical shock. Walt moaned helplessly into Henry’s mouth, hips following Henry’s movement.

Henry didn’t say a word—just kept pushing, pushing Walt back into the wall, hot against him, the wall cold against Walt’s back, even through the parka. Walt found himself raising his hands to Henry’s cheeks, running his thumbs over the cheekbones, cupping Henry’s jaw in his fingers, all while Henry kept kissing him hotly. Henry made a soft, pained noise, and pressed his hard-on into Walt’s thigh.

Walt couldn’t stop rolling his hips, didn’t want to stop. He’d tried (he _had_ tried) not to think about what he’d _do_ if he ever had Henry like this, Henry’s fingers scrabbling on the leather of his belt. The leather slid free, and then Henry’s hand, shockingly cold, plunged into Walt’s jeans.

“Ah!” Walt gasped. Henry didn’t pause, head tipped down to watch as he pulled Walt’s cock out into the air.

Walt—well, Walt and Martha had waited until marriage to make love, but Walt read, and Martha read, and between the two of them, they’d figured things out pretty well, Walt had always thought. Martha loved Walt’s mouth; she’d twist and wriggle above him, gasping for breath, clamp her thighs around his head, and he’d chase her bucking hips. She loved his hands, too. He could make her go pink in public by sliding one up her leg, tapping his fingers lightly on her skin as if he was playing a song at the piano. He loved her hands, and her mouth, in turn, the way she’d approach him with her whole body, still as reckless and delighted as she’d been when they were newlyweds.

He had wondered, despite himself, in the dark of more than one night here at the end of the world, whether Henry would like his hands, his mouth. It seemed like Henry was determined not to give him a chance to find out, hand fisted around Walt’s cock, Henry staring down at that instead of meeting Walt’s eyes. And that—that was wrong.

 

Henry was stroking Walt, trying to concentrate, to soak in the way Walt was shaking, and perhaps this was why he did not immediately notice where Walt’s attention was.

The error in this was made apparent when he felt Walt’s thumbs slide under his chin, and Walt forced his head up, and he found himself staring into Walt’s eyes instead of at his stiff cock in the glinting shadows of the storeroom.

“I want to—” Walt had trouble getting the words out, having to stop as Henry’s hand faltered, but he persevered, like he always did, the thick-headed stubborn idiot. “Do you,” and he paused again, clearly searching for what to say as Henry’s hand moved slowly, Henry almost hypnotized by the way Walt’s throat bobbed as he swallowed. Then one of Walt’s hands left Henry’s face and landed squarely on Henry’s inseam.

Henry could not help groaning, which only made Walt bold. Walt did to Henry’s belt what Henry had done to Walt’s, and Henry had to sigh in pleasure as Walt wrapped his hand around Henry’s hand, around both of them.

But Walt was apparently not _done_ surprising Henry, because Walt took a deep breath and slid down the wall. Henry was left staring down after him in comical bewilderment until he felt the heat of Walt’s breath, shockingly hot in the chill air, on his cock.

“Walt,” whispered Henry, fumbling a hand into Walt’s hair. “Walt. _Walt._ ”

Walt hummed softly, leaned forward, and put his mouth on Henry like it was nothing. Henry tried to keep his eyes open—he could barely see in the darkness, but Walt’s hair was glowing in the low light, his head moving.

Walt had clearly never done this before. Henry had been on the receiving end of these tender ministrations before, from various people, and he knew what expertise looked like, felt like. This remained far superior.

Henry had meant to keep control of the situation. That was obviously a lost cause.

Walt—carefully, like a question—put his hands on Henry’s hips. Henry whined softly. Walt eased down a little more, took a little more, and Henry was rigid with the effort it took not to thrust into Walt’s face.

Sooner than he was ready for it, he could feel it, and he whispered harshly, “I am going to—”

He expected Walt to draw back, spare them both; instead Walt spread his hand out, holding Henry’s hip in his hand with a grip like iron, and pushed forward. Henry came into his throat, gasping, bucking so that he slammed his head into the wall.

Henry had his hands in Walt’s hair still. He tried tugging, gently, and Walt came to his feet slowly, hesitantly.

Henry could not stand the question in Walt’s eyes. He kissed Walt immediately to make it go away.

 

Walt felt light-headed, buzzing with energy. Henry had fallen apart for him, better than anything Walt could have imagined, and Henry was kissing him. Henry was still breathing hard, almost panting, and his hands kept fisting in Walt’s shirt, easing, tightening again.

Henry pulled back for a second and opened his eyes. Walt was pinned like an insect under glass. Henry reached for Walt’s cock again, and this time Walt’s groan was embarrassingly loud as Henry pumped him once, twice, lingeringly.

If it was a game, Walt hadn’t meant to raise the stakes; but still, Henry went to his knees lightly, easily, and sucked Walt in.

 

Henry had, in fact, done this before. He had never limited his affections to women only, and while the pool of available partners had been limited, he had had enough opportunities to develop some familiarity with the process.

It was all worth it, listening to Walt’s breathing hitching above him.

It did not take long, which was some consolation for his own performance. Besides, it had been some time for both of them. Walt pulled his hair in warning, but in solidarity, he ignored it; Walt ought to have the first of something from him.

 

Walt realized there were tears in his eyes as he caught his breath.

Henry kissed him again, short and sharp, and then turned, tucking himself into his pants, grabbing his parka up off the floor, on his way out the door. Walt stared after him until Henry paused at the door and said, voice low and tight, “Do you _want_ to get to bed before dawn?”

Walt followed his lead, baffled, alarmed, heart still pounding.

Lying in bed that night, Walt couldn’t sleep. Henry didn’t sound like he was sleeping, either.

 

The next night, when Walt came to bed after grabbing a shower, Henry was in his. They grappled, almost like they were fighting; came silently, in the darkness. Then Henry slid out of Walt’s bed and back into his own, and Walt was left wondering what the hell had happened.

It became a pattern. Henry let it become a pattern. Henry, if he were being perfectly honest, forced it into a pattern—hurried moments caught in the storeroom, in their dorm room; once, in a truck on a supply run Walt tagged along for.  After, Henry always put distance between them.

Henry did not want to think about what would happen when they were no longer in Alaska. Henry did not want to think at all.

 

The day did eventually come, when their time was up, and they got on a plane—the first of several—their duffel bags slung over their shoulders. Henry seemed subdued, and Walt felt something sick and icy in the pit of his stomach.

They sat side by side on the planes, but Henry barely spoke to him. Henry spent more time staring out the windows. First the North Slope fell away behind them, then Anchorage, then Seattle. By the time their last plane, which was about the size of a go-cart, rattled to a stop, Walt felt like throwing a punch.

Martha was waiting for them. Cady was back with the neighbors, and Martha looked so small and delicate on the bench seat of her truck, parked at the edge of the landing field, even in her flannel shirt. Her whole face lit up when she saw them.

Walt grinned back, momentarily forgetting, momentarily transported. She pushed the door open and vaulted out lightly, hair shining in the Wyoming sunlight, and then she took off running, flinging herself into Walt’s arms so that he had to drop his bag to catch her.

“Oof!” he said, with a grunt, and she was laughing brightly into his ear before kissing him, hard.

He was grinning down at her when he happened to glance up, and he saw Henry’s face.

It stopped him cold. His own smile fell, and he felt Martha go tense.

He’d seen Henry in bad shape. He’d seen Henry after the first _and_ second times Deena had left him. He had never, never seen Henry’s face like this. Hollow.

Martha turned as Henry was trying to fit a better expression onto his face. She was no fool; Walt knew she saw it, too.

 

“Oh, Henry,” said Martha softly, still half wrapped up in Walt. “I’ve missed you.”

Whatever Henry had expected, that was not it. He blinked hard. “I have missed you as well, Martha.”

He had also not expected her to step into him—gingerly, carefully—and put her arms around him. He put his arms around her in return.

She held him too tightly, whispered into his ear so softly it would have been inaudible to anyone else, “ _Come home with us._ ”

His grip on her loosened. She pulled back enough to look up at him; he found himself brushing the auburn hair back out of her face, letting his fingers trail through her curls.

“I—” he said, and found he could not think of anything else to say. “All right.”

That cleared the clouds from her eyes. Martha smiled up at him, glowing, and grabbed his hand. “Come on, then!” she said, tugging him back toward the truck. He turned back to look at Walt, who looked equally baffled, but then Walt shrugged, pulled his duffel bag back up onto his shoulder, and followed.

 

Walt tossed his bag into the truck bed, and Henry followed suit. They were both trading cautious glances over Martha’s head, not quite sure what to make of it all.

Martha scrambled into the truck. Walt settled behind the wheel, just like he used to, and Henry climbed in on Martha’s other side, his usual place; it felt almost normal, but not quite, or not even close.

Martha kept up a stream of chatter the whole way back. When they got close to the turn-off for Henry’s place, she just put a warning hand on Walt’s thigh. He turned to look at her, and she shook her head minutely. He shrugged and kept driving. Henry said nothing.

Walt and Martha’s place was just a trailer on Walt’s family’s land. Walt went to Prudhoe Bay to make enough money to keep the land, maybe even fix it up someday, but it didn’t leave much room for improvements. Martha kept the trailer nice enough. It was still small, cramped even for their little family of three.

Martha kept talking—local news, local gossip; how the livestock were doing—as she started rattling around the apartment, pulling out fixings for grilled cheese sandwiches. Walt hadn’t noticed how hungry he was getting until he smelled the cheese frying up in the pan.

Henry was watching Martha with a little smile on his lips, back to the trailer wall, sitting on the bench behind the rickety kitchen table.

“—you’ve got to shave, Henry,” she was saying. “That beard doesn’t suit you at all!”

“Funny,” said Henry, “that is what Walt said. In far less diplomatic words.”

She handed out their sandwiches, and for a few minutes they were all silent, eating.

When they’d finished, they sat for a minute or two in silence before Martha said, “I think I wasn’t—clear enough, Walt. Or you weren’t.”

The hair on the back of Walt’s neck stood on end. “What do you mean?” he asked, roughly.

“I don’t think Henry knew he was welcome here.” She met his eyes squarely.

“Of course he knows that! He knows he’s always—” and Walt might be a bit dense but that was the exact moment he figured out what she was talking about, and his mouth slammed shut.

Henry’s calm had vanished; he looked like he was about two words from making a break for it, tensed up in his seat. “Nonsense, Martha,” he said. “Thank you for the food; it was delicious. I should really be—”

Martha just talked right over him. “The Webers have Cady for the night. There’s no reason we can’t settle this.”

“Settle what?” Walt croaked.

Martha glared at him like he was stupid, then got up and, quick as a thought, settled onto Henry’s lap, anchoring him back down to his seat. Walt’s fingers dug into his own legs until they hurt.

“See,” Martha said to Henry, quietly and seriously. “He loves it. He loves _us._ ”

“I—” Henry opened his mouth and closed it again.

“Don’t you, honey?” she added over her shoulder to Walt.

And he could have lied; but why would he have been tempted? “Yeah,” he said, hoarsely. “Yeah.”

Martha turned back to Henry and kissed him. Henry made a noise in his throat like he’d been punched, but he leaned into her after just a second’s hesitation, and his hands ran up her back, tangled in her hair. She had her hands resting on his chest.

Then she broke the kiss, looked over at Walt, and said, breathlessly—oh, God, he knew exactly what that breathlessness felt like; what getting kissed senseless by Henry felt like—“Aren’t you going to come over here?”

Walt nearly knocked the table over, he stood up so fast.

 

The next morning Henry woke up slowly. The pillow was so soft, softer than anything he could remember from the months in Alaska. And he was warm—too warm—crushed by heat. He tried to move, and Walt’s arm tightened around his waist.

He opened his eyes. Martha’s eyes were already open; she was staring right at him, seeing him. He was laid bare.

“Good morning,” she said, smiling. He smiled back, heart light for the first time in months.

“It is.” He wondered if they might have a razor that he could borrow.

**Author's Note:**

> If you'd like to know just why Walt and Martha alike found Henry's beard unsupportable, please [behold](http://www.loudiamondphillips.co.uk/tres06.jpg): young Lou Diamond Phillips with what can only be described as the saddest little scraggly attempt at [facial hair](http://www.loudiamondphillips.co.uk/tres01.jpg) I've seen since high school drama club.


End file.
